Back to My Ancestral Mothers’ Day Womb

I wish to go back and spend time with my village of women 

I need them to hold me and swaddle me and dry my tears 

To feed and bathe me 

Dip me in the waters of my earliest moments of wonder and fearlessness like a virginal baptism 

And clothe me in my right mind 

I wish to sit around the fire with them at night and hear the stories of the conjure women and the men and women they have loved 

I wish to wash their feet for them in exchange for the recipes to the dishes and healing salves and potions that they learned from their mothers and those women before them 

I want to taste the foods that came from the land and from the animals that kept them alive when there was nothing to barter but time and mothering and nurture and caring 

I want them to hold me and sing to me and teach me how to be a woman 

With passion and feelings and lusts and desires 

With softness and tenderness at night and strength that comes at morning 

I want to know the secrets and the truth 

I want to see the beauty of my skin and love the texture of my hair after a washing in holy rain 

I want to remember the sacredness of my body 

I need to have the stories of my ancestral mothers inside of me like Scripture 

Like a knowing that I had before I was knitted in my birth mother’s womb 

My grand daughters will need this of me one day 

I am gathering my health and longevity now at the feet of these women who are the only ones who can lead me home and show me the way into my rebirth 

They tolerate no lies 

They love in the messy and the flaws 

They know about the world and they don’t tolerate its bullshit 

They will not let anyone desecrate or destroy me and the light that I bring 

And too, they are not afraid of facing the dark; in fact, they welcome it because they know the damnation of shadows is a lie 

Shadows are just hiding the light 

They show me how to lean into my shadows, without fear of defeat 

To believe that peace and calm and love will conquer all if I am real and honest about who I am 

I need them 

I need them to guide me as I learn to stand and walk and talk and speak, knowing I am never alone 

I will hold their teachings and love for me deep in my heart and it will purify me and keep me steadfast 

Cause 

They are my memory 

They hold my freedom 

I am their child 

Giver of the next life of women who have not yet been born although they have have lived many decades on this mortal plane already 

They are waiting for me 

And so I must surrender now and go back into the womb of my ancestral mothers for rebirth 

My death and rebirth are necessary 

It is the only way to save me 

The only way for me to remember the world I came from and to create the world I have not yet seen and presently cannot conceive nor comprehend 

Only then, when I spend time back in the womb of my ancestral mothers can I truly be 

Only then will I be 

Only then 

Will God hear from the heavens and heal the land, 

Whispering to me, “You are cleansed and your ashes scattered beyond the horizon 

You have entered a second time into your mother’s womb and been reborn 

Now go and judge ye not and be judged no more.” 

--Back to My Ancestral Mothers’ Day Womb, by Traci Patterson Cook